If we listen carefully to educators building a social studies curriculum, we hear questions of vital importance for our world. These questions include what kind of society we envision for the future or what kind of citizens we need to ensure the continuance of our democracy. Concepts like community, identity, and multiple perspectives pepper the conversations. We hear talk of understanding social forcesand recognizing humans as social beingswho spend their lives trying to make sense of the world of human interactions past and present. During the 2001–02 school year, we didlisten carefully to teachers and administrators all over Vermont as they discussed these vital issues and struggled through the process of building curriculum for history and the social sciences. Just as democracy in its true sense is a messy business of passion and compromise, so too is curriculum development and implementation. Every team we visited had its own unique context and set of issues, but they also had one thing in common. They wanted to make their students powerful and confident users of knowledge in order take their places in the world as active, caring citizens. To be sure, they argued about which knowledge was most important and how to help kids toward deep understanding of the important topics. But in the end, they always kept the power of knowledge and the potency of ideas in the forefront. Teachers also wanted youngsters to have the opportunity to find themselves within the chosen curriculum. They knew they had a responsibility to choose content wisely but also to leave room for choices. “This is the strategic balance between anarchy and authoritarianism in a course of study.” (Ellis & Stuen 13) It is the democratic process at its best. We want to thank all those educators who shared their stories with us. We chose the following school districts for their geographic and demographic variety: Washington West (WWSU), Blue Mountain Supervisory Union (BMSU), and Southern Vermont Supervisory Union (SVSU) as well as Carrie Waara and her class from Castleton State College (CSC) and Stephen Hoyt from Orleans-Essex North (OENSU). They and others like them from around Vermont and the country prove that democracy is never a fixed destination but always a journey in progress. A Word About Vermont’s Standards Standards by themselves are neither the curricula nor instructional strategies, although they provide directions to these targets. Improving the alignment of classroom instruction to district benchmarks and state standards can dramatically improve the quality — and equity — of education (Marzano). The philosophical underpinning of the standards is to ensure equity for all of Vermont’s youngsters. Every student is expected to take aim at the same target, the same high standards. Every teacher is expected to find a way, through varied means, to help her/his students hit the targets as close to the center as possible. We can never know the true potential of our students and should not predict who can or can’t hit the bull’seye. We need to have faith in our students and in our skills as teachers to get everyone close with time and effort. Standards by themselves can never do that. It takes excellent teaching, a good curriculum plan, exciting materials, and a support structure within which teachers are free to find the best paths to high level learning for everyone. This guide proposes some processes and targets for teams building a standards-based curriculum. Although we had to set up the process in a linear fashion, the pieces do not need to be completed in this order. Each team will take a different path and have varied experiences along the way. Like democracy, curriculum is not a fixed destination but always an exciting and intellectually challenging journey. This is simply a road map of various ways to plan your task. Remember: Getting there is the real fun!
INTRODUCTION The videotapes you are about to see have captured The Living Curriculum: the day-to-day interactions among teachers, students, and a variety of topics and resources. In that sense, we are watching the real curriculum makers and witnessing curriculum-in-the-making — students and teachers making their own meaning out of the formal curriculum. Let us be perfectly clear from the start: these tapes are biased. They have a particular point of view and promote a particular vision of the social studies. That vision comes from Vermont’s Framework of Standardsfor History and the Social Sciences. Anything produced by human beings has biases and perspectives, and as social studies teachers we must teach students to recognize and evaluate them. Sometimes this takes a lot of digging. In these materials, we clearly state our vision and leave it to you to evaluate its integrity as you view, analyze, and discuss the living curriculum on these tapes. Approaches for the Social Studies Just about everyone agrees that the main purpose of the social studies is to educate for citizenship... the difficulty lies in defining exactly what “citizenship” looks like and what methods are best to teach it. There are essentially two major approaches to social studies teaching with various sub-categories and strategies to accompany each approach. There is the investigation and critical evaluation approachand the cultural transmission approach. Each has a different view of citizenship and the knowledge and skills needed to operate within our society. The cultural transmission approach promotes adaptation to society as it is. It is the more conservative approach of the two and generally accepts the dominant view of issues and events — the perspective of the powerful — as seen in textbooks. Because texts are the major (often the only) tool used, this approach de-emphasizes multiple perspectives. It generally emphasizes democracy as procedures, such as voting or giving one’s opinion on a bill. The business of governing is then taken care of by the experts. This approach emphasizes factual knowledge, and the most efficient way is used to transmit facts: whole group, teacher-centered instruction. Students are taught that there is an absolute human reality, as interpreted by someone else, and transmission of this knowledge is paramount. Generally, it promotes knowledge in the various academic disciplines rather than interdisciplinary work. The ability to conform, to passively accept knowledge, follow directions, and memorize are important skills to succeed with this approach. Standardized exams generally encourage this approach. The investigation and critical evaluation approach prepares students for democracy as a reality-in-progress, a striving for a better society, rather than as a fixed set of facts and procedures. It does not deny that there are fixed facts (1861 Emancipation Proclamation), but that interpreting the facts (why then? to what effect?) is what is most important. It promotes investigations into the ways communities work or have worked in the past so students can understand society and its social forces in order to operate effectively within it. Students are taught to view knowledge critically and question dominant views. Various perspectives are valued for which a variety of primary and secondary materials are needed. As such, the beliefs, passions, and sacrifices of real people (with all their biases) reveal themselves to us and are not smothered by seemingly objective descriptions in textbooks. This approach emphasizes higher order thinking, social criticism, and struggling with ethical questions in an interdisciplinary, in-depth manner. The ability to question, to investigate, to analyze issues and events from various perspectives, and form one’s own conclusions are important skills to succeed with this approach, as well as to succeed in life.
Donna Peabody, Anne Adams, Marguerite Ames, Mary Casserino, Dave Larsen, Janet Steward, Sharyl Green, Susan Adams, Mollie S. Burke, Tom Beach, Jane Vossler, Fran Brock, Michele Forman, Steve Niederhauser, Tim Kipp.
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